Friday, February 28, 2014

This tutorial has been a long time coming. My apologies. It was back in November 2009 when my first was just a little one when I first showed this continuous cable border and I used it again for my sisters wedding present in August 2012. I have received so many e-mails asking for the pattern. Here is the pattern that I will leave up for the month of March on the blog before putting a PDF version it in my Etsy store. If you would like a PDF version of the pattern e-mailed to you during March - please let me know.

I haven't done much hand knitting for a longtime. My little bunnies are SO fascinated by knitting needles and the wonder of throwing a ball of yarn around - I can't tell you how many times I accidentally left the knitting within arm reach of one of them and they pulled the needles out! You would have thought I would have learnt after the first occurrence of needle pulling - but apparently not!

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

This a sneak peak at a quilt I am making for the girls school as a fundraiser. The family who won the quilt requested a 'modern quilt, purple, with flowers'. I've been thinking for a while of what pattern to use for quilting.

Here is what I decided. It is from Doodle Quilting by Cheryl Malkowski - I love this book - it has such great ideas from practice to putting various elements together to make interesting designs.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

I keep pretty much every piece of 'art' my little ones make. I was
spring cleaning a little and going through all the kids art work trying
to keep the most special pieces - as even by age 4 my drawers are
overflowing with precious scribbles and blobs of paint.

I couldn't bring myself to throw away any of the art and this project has been in the back of my mind for a long long time.

Friday, February 21, 2014

I have purchased some micro handles which are supposed to help me with micro/up close work. I tend to try to do quite dense/detailed quilting. The micro handles are helpful - your hands are in more of a similar position to that of domestic machine quilting - although they do reduce your working space by a few inches as they take up a little room in front of the front bar. I have been trying out some new things I haven't done before - using the Welcome Baby Blankets that I am making for our church as my experimenting ground.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

As I have mentioned this top came from my guild the New York Metro Mod Quilters. I haven't belonged to a quilting guild before - my teacher Teri had encouraged me to join one. At my first meeting I showed this memorial quilt. For some reason I thought that I would be flooded with ideas on how I could make it better, improved it, done it differently - but to my surprise people where SO kind about it. So kind my cheeks got pink.

I also mentioned I was getting a longarm and happy to practice on anything anyone wanted to give me. Perhaps a foolish offer as a few minutes later I had this quilt top in my arms. The backing material was also provided by the guild.

Monday, February 17, 2014

My scrap bag has got utterly out of control - over flowing onto the floor and carpet - so I spent the weekend organizing scraps into colored bins and discovering little bits here. Separating pieces that I can turn into speedy negative space filled quilts. I feel like since Freddie arrived I have become a little bit possessed and obsessed in thinking about quilts I can quickly make so that I can load and spend the majority of time quilting them. The more negative space the better!

Friday, February 14, 2014

When I work with families on quilts I always keep every single scrap until I know what the families want to do with them. And by every last scrap I mean EVERY label, button, seam, tiny sliver - everything is kept together until I know what the families wishes are.

On this occasion the family asked for two small cushions - one for each of the grandchild.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

If you remember this project came about as a suggestion from Asia from Fun at Home with Kids. Asia's site is my go-to if I am ever looking for fun activity to do with my little bunnies.

This quilt is so pretty. These photos do not show what a wonderful job my eldest bunny did (not that I am biased!) The colors are all soft and sherberty. They did spread - they are not perfect circles - but I do not care.

I had so much fun quilting it with a sort of free form McTavishing style. Here it is coming off the frame.

Monday, February 10, 2014

I reloaded the guild quilt top again. To say I am harboring a little bit of resentment towards this piece is a mild understatement. If you remember - last time I loaded this top I quilted for 30 mins and unpicked for over 5 hours. I was clear with the guild when I took the top that I wanted to practice and our President (Lisa Mason - check out her work) asked me if there was any particular pattern I would like to practice. Taking her question as though I have free reign to quilt what I please. I have kept the curved serpintine type lines on the diagonals but I used a really pretty grey/lilac thread by Superior So Fine # 50 - Milan Mauve instead of a variegated thread. I am simply fascinated by how the color of the thread changes dependent on the fabric underneath it (I'm totally obsessed by color but typically scared to use it.) I have decided to take this quilt one block at a time. Quilt a different design in each block - changing thread colors as I go.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Karen McTavish was actually the first person I saw using a longarm who's work captured my attention and made me think 'I want to do that'. Her work seems effortless, organic and flowing. My dream would be to become a quilter of this standard - maybe after 20 years of practice? I've been practising McTavishing on our latest Kid Painted Art Quilt - Watercolor Circles. It was such a fun piece to quilt - I just went for it. I've now become obsessed with negative space in quilts!!